Investing in Entrepreneurs & Start-ups | Making Investments with Seedrs

Anyone that has started their own business from scratch can appreciate how costly and time consuming it can be. I've been listening to a lot of business podcasts of late and there is definitely a ground swell of serial investors, investing in entrepreneurs and start-ups. Each hoping they have the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg on their hands. 

Firstly, I've always said if you want to tag yourself as an entrepreneur the first step is being able to spell the word 'entrepreneur’ without predictive text. So go away and try that now and then come back and I'll tell you all about Seedrs. 

Welcome back, the years have been kind. 

For you Londoners you may already have seen some of the adverts for Seedrs on the Tube. Seedrs enable all types of investors to invest in businesses they believe in and share in their success.

They enable all types of growth-focused businesses to raise capital and a community in the process.

They've been a huge catalyst in a number of success stories like the healthy Ice Cream alternative Oppo for example. Move aside Viennetta, there's a new Sunday Netflix binge-watching companion kid in town. 

Oppo's success story is defined by three things; 1. A genius concept of incepting the wellness movement by taking a guilty pleasure product and making it healthy. 2. The dedication by the two founders Harry and Charlie who made the leap of faith and invested years of their lives into bringing the concept to market. 3. Seedrs. Once the brand was showing signs of growth they turned to Seedrs and enabled Oppo fans to get a stake in the business thus becoming the world’s fastest food and drink company to reach target through crowdfunding.

The leap of faith of leaving your job to commit to an idea is something I can personally relate to with my journey at Hawkins & Shepherd. There are plenty of head in hands moments that you need to battle through, but as Rocky would say, "you've got to learn how to take the hits, that's how winning is done". 

So why should I look at investing in someone else's project? 

Firstly, you're not doing all the heavy lifting. Other people are. Backing the right project is a step towards having a more affluent lifestyle, financial security and early retirement on that beach in the Bahamas. 

If you buy businesses that have a good trajectory growth, it's much easier to grow them and make more money. Seedrs is ideal for people that have become bored or dispassionate in their own company and are looking to get their teeth into something new. 

'Don't waste your time being a cool entrepreneur and try to create new ideas unless you're trying to do world changing stuff, like make people live on Mars. Instead, go buy one and just grow it.' - Neil Patel, Single Grain 

That's it for me today, let me know in the comment bar below if you've invested in Start Ups, I'm always keen to hear and am always on the lookout to invest in entrepreneurs myself. 

*Carl Thompson's views are all his own and do not represent the views of Seedrs Limited. If you have any questions with respect to legal, financial or tax matters relating to investing in early-stage startups, you should consult a professional adviser.